Because touch panels can be used to realize simple, convenient and natural human-machine interactions, touch panels are widely applied in human life.
A touch panel generally comprises a substrate, a black matrix layer, a bridging layer, an insulating layer, an electrode layer, and a protecting layer. The black matrix layer, the bridging layer, the insulating layer, the electrode layer, and the protecting layer are successively disposed or overlaid over the substrate.
The electrode layer typically includes a plurality of driving electrode lines extending in a horizontal direction and a plurality of sensing electrode lines extending in a vertical direction. The driving electrode lines are insulated from the sensing electrode lines at the intersections where they stagger. The bridging layer usually comprises a plurality of bridging electrodes, each bridging electrode configured to electrically connect the driving electrode lines that are disconnected. The insulating layer is employed to maintain an insulation between the driving electrode lines and the sensing electrode lines.
During a conventional manufacturing process of touch panels, each of the film layers that are employed for fabricating touch panels is sequentially fabricated over a substrate with a relatively large area (usually called a master substrate), then the master substrate is cut into smaller pieces having specific shapes and sizes to thereby obtain multiple individual touch panels.